


Spotlight

by Kantayra



Series: Atobe/Tezuka Future 'Verse [3]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Coming Out, Future Fic, M/M, Marriage, Press and Tabloids, Tennis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8686705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantayra/pseuds/Kantayra
Summary: Tezuka and Atobe finally announce their marriage to the world the same way they do everything else: with far too much flirting, snark, and tennis.





	1. Sub Rosa

Atobe chuckled at the sour expression on Tezuka’s face. It was the expression Tezuka always wore when the press asked him questions that weren’t directly related to tennis.

“No opinion,” Tezuka said bluntly, while Atobe hid his snicker in his fist.

The reporter blinked at Tezuka incredulously. “You have no opinion on whether you’re currently seeing someone?”

Tezuka blinked back impassively and then nodded slightly in acknowledgement that that was a weak brush-off, even for him. “Atobe is directly in my line of sight. Therefore, I’m currently seeing him.”

Atobe started snickering harder and rested his forehead against Tezuka’s shoulder while his frame shook.

Tezuka gave Atobe a skeptical look.

“Sorry, sorry,” Atobe said, still trying not to laugh. “It’s just never a dull moment watching you in interviews.”

The reporter glommed on to Atobe like a drowning sailor to a lifesaver. “How about you? Any romance on the horizon?”

“I don’t kiss and tell,” Atobe winked and, where the reporter couldn’t see, pinched Tezuka neatly on his very pert behind.

Tezuka gave Atobe an annoyed look, which the reporter clearly took to be a result of Atobe’s (admittedly annoying) answer. “Our training schedules are rigorous,” he finally managed to turn the topic back vaguely toward tennis. “Neither of us have time to waste going out and seeing other people.”

Atobe bit his lip at that, because he could never get over how exceptionally clever Tezuka was at confessing to their relationship in ways that really weren’t confessions. He waited to see if the reporter would catch the trickery in Tezuka's wording _this time_. In fact, he even slung his arm companionably around Tezuka’s shoulders in a not-so-subtle hint.

“How have you been preparing for the French Open?” the reporter obliviously turned back to a question Tezuka would actually consider answering. “Clay has never been your forte.”

Atobe could feel Tezuka’s muscles relax under his arm as he answered the question, still cagily, but more honestly. After all, it wouldn’t do for Tezuka to get careless and reveal his strategy or any of the additional moves he’d been training on for the last few months. Atobe felt confident Tezuka had a few tricks even _he_ didn’t know, lest they end up meeting in the semi-finals, as unlikely as that was, given their respective brackets.

Atobe chimed in with some comments about his first-round opponent, whom he’d lost to in the quarter-finals last year.

Satisfied, the reporter thanked them for their time and ran off to chase down a couple of the Spanish players that were headed for the showers.

“You owe me another €20,” Tezuka said slyly once they were out of earshot.

“You know,” Atobe said wearily, “when we made that bet, I didn’t _honestly_ think it would take the press this long to figure out that we’re married.”

“I can’t imagine why. They never figured out when we were dating and living together, either.”

“I still can’t believe that 10-minute conversation you had with that reporter before the Monte-Carlo Masters, who managed not to notice you were wearing your wedding ring the whole time,” Atobe groaned in defeat.

Tezuka gave Atobe a concerned look. “Do you want to just tell them?”

“Yes and no,” Atobe sighed. “The moment they find out, we’ll not have a moment’s peace.”

“Until someone better than us comes out,” Tezuka corrected.

Atobe shook his head in disbelief. “Tezuka, Tezuka, Tezuka… I am beautiful, rich, famous, and a complete press-whore. There exists no person in the world better than me to come out. You’ll be answering questions about how wonderful I am until the day you die.”

“Which differs from my current life how, exactly?”

Atobe batted Tezuka in the shoulder. “Oh, come now. I don’t demand praise to my person _that_ often. Every other day, at the most. And that is totally within the realm of reasonable homage, given how handsome, brilliant, and talented I am.”

Tezuka smiled to himself and slanted his eyes over Atobe’s way coyly. “How silly of me not to have noticed.”

Atobe gave him an affronted look.

Tezuka reached out, caught him around the waist, and pulled him in close, just outside the locker rooms. “To have you, I would gladly suffer inane questions from the press about our marriage for the rest of my life,” he conceded.

Atobe curled into him gratefully. “Fine. Maybe I’ll keep you to myself, just for a bit longer.”

“A bit,” Tezuka agreed, but something in his eyes was twinkling.

“Why, Tezuka,” Atobe said suspiciously, “you’re up to something.”

“Just enjoying having my husband’s exclusive attention for one last moment,” Tezuka insisted, giving Atobe a quick peck on the lips. “Go now, and show the rest of the world just how handsome, brilliant, and talented you are.”


	2. Impact

Sweat dripped down Atobe’s forehead, catching on his eyebrow before falling down into his eye, a minor annoyance that he wiped aside unconsciously, his eyes never leaving his opponent for a moment.

The day was sweltering for this time of year, and every one of Atobe’s muscles ached from the six grueling hours he'd forced his body through.

Atobe didn’t notice any of it, though. Not the fatigue nor the buzz of the crowd nor heat of the sun. His entire world was narrowed, coalesced into the two slow, familiar bounces of the ball against the clay as his opponent set up his serve. The ball spun into the air, met the racket with a resounding thwack that suddenly awoke Atobe’s ears once more, and sailed at lightning speed toward the exact corner of the service box.

Atobe’s body moved instinctively, swung, and hit just as sharply to the far corner baseline. This late in the game, with this level of exhaustion, it was just enough.

“Deuce.”

That was what – the seventh, eighth deuce? Atobe took a deep, shaky breath and moved back to the baseline, waiting.

The pound of the ball bouncing on clay resounded through his ears. He subconsciously recognized the movements of this serve and responded the moment the racket strings made contact. He countered two-handed, making up for the strength his limbs had lost due to fatigue.

His opponent was equally worn out, but just as doggedly determined. The return came sailing back, and Atobe ran, his feet fortunately moving with the muscle-memory of countless hours of footwork spread out over a decade of constant practice.

As he positioned himself, however, the ball skimmed the net, diverting its course. Atobe’s eyes, weary from exhausting hours of play yet still unable to stop from over-analyzing, screamed _IN!_ , and he dove toward the net, racket outstretched.

He caught the ball right at the end of his racket and then hit the court hard, panting, eyes shut tight. He didn’t even have to wait for the referee to know the verdict on his attempted return: “Out!”

Disadvantage his, then.

He forced his limbs to respond, peeled himself up off the court, and took a deep, calming breath as he positioned himself. He knew what his opponent was going to do now; he just had to make his body obey.

He swayed slowly, racket in front of him, waiting for the next serve. His opponent took his time, playing the match-point cautiously, slowing everything down to regain his focus. Atobe did the same. He knew his opponent was tired – more tired than he was; if he played this through to the end, his opponent would break first.

The serve was sharp, but had nowhere near the speed and power that it had had even two games earlier. Atobe caught it and returned to the opposite corner. His opponent ran, stumbled, and somehow picked up the ball despite everything.

It was more luck than anything else that sent the ball at a sharp angle, bouncing close to the net on Atobe’s side. Atobe grinned because, _yes, this was what tennis was all about_. A powerful, relentless opponent and pushing himself beyond all thought and strategy until all that was left were two raw beings, neither giving up nor compromising.

Atobe dove, caught the ball in a textbook drop-shot, and watched his opponent lunge. Atobe was already running back to the other side but too far, too late, too slow.

The passing shot whipped by him, bounced a good two feet inside the baseline, and rattled the fence weakly when it struck.

Atobe stood motionless for a second, his pulse pounding in his ears so loudly he couldn’t hear anything else, his chest heaving for deep breaths of air, the edges of his vision wavering erratically between blurred and over-sharp.

“Game-set-match, Tezuka!” the referee announced, and the words sounded dimmed, like the sound had been turned far down on the world, while Atobe knew only the ball that now rolled sluggishly along the bottom of the fence.

Then, one of the ball boys picked it up, and the world rushed in with deafening applause, and Atobe realized that it was over, and worse he had lost, but that was mitigated by the fact that _he knew that name_.

A smile twitched on the edges of his lips, and he dropped to his knees, still panting for breath, one hand leaning on the net-post to steady himself. He leaned forward, pressed his forehead against metal that felt cool against the heat of his forehead, even though it had been baking in the sun all day.

So, Tezuka had finally beat him on clay. It was shocking and disappointing (because Atobe hated to lose) but also elating (because this was the one surface where Tezuka had never been able to match his stamina, and now they were equals in this too, in _everything_ ). Only with Tezuka had it ever been like this, where every win felt like a loss and every loss felt like a win.

Slowly, a shadow descended on him, and that was even better, blocking out the sun that had been sapping his strength for so long.

“Are you all right?” a warm, wonderful voice asked.

Atobe managed a nod, and when a hand tangled with his on the net-post, he accepted it, interlocked with it, and let it pull him up to his shaky feet.

“You’re _such_ a bastard,” Atobe said to Tezuka’s smirk, smirking himself.

Tezuka swiped at his forehead with the hand that still held the racket, wiping away the sweat there. “You didn’t think I would _actually_ let you drag it out another three games, did you?”

Atobe laughed and stumbled a little into Tezuka’s body, the net still separating them. “Shall we do this, then?” he asked, waiting for Tezuka to raise their hands above their heads in what had become something of a tradition for them, ever since Atobe had first done it all those years ago.

Tezuka smiled that Mona Lisa smile of his and then, catching Atobe completely off-guard, pulled him into his arms.

Atobe had only one moment to gape, and then Tezuka’s lips were on his, hard and chapped and demanding, and Atobe melted at the force of Tezuka’s kiss, going soft and pliant in his arms. Tezuka kissed him deeply and thoroughly, wet and hungry, and it was far from the best kiss they’d ever shared, because they were both gasping and exhausted and sweaty and smelly. But at the same time, they’d just played their new greatest match, and that made it the _best kiss ever_.

Finally, Tezuka pulled back with a smug, satisfied look, and Atobe wished he could do anything but lean helplessly against Tezuka’s frame, because Tezuka really was a complete bastard, even if no one else realized it.

It took Atobe a beat, two, and then three because he really was completely worn ragged, but then he _realized_.

His eyes went wide, and he pulled back to see most people gaping but others cheering and some hoots and the press going absolutely _hysterical_ , and Atobe finally processed the fact that, yes, Tezuka had just kissed him in the middle of court at semi-finals of the French Open where _everyone_ had seen it.

Dimly, Atobe recalled that this was being televised live somewhere.

One part of Atobe’s brain scrambled, trying to remember if there was some bylaw that would get them censured for PDAs. But the rest of him felt stupidly warm and fuzzy at the thought that private, cautious, reserved Tezuka had _claimed_ him like that, publicly, where there could be no doubt that they belonged to each other.

“I think,” Tezuka said dryly, adjusting his glasses on his nose where Atobe had knocked them askew, “that even the dimmest members of the press should be able to figure out that we’re seeing each other now.”

A laugh escaped Atobe’s lips, and then Tezuka let out a startled laugh too, and leaning against each other for support, they made their way toward the lightning-storm of camera flashes, their hands still clasped as Tezuka raised them high above their heads.


	3. Front and Center

Tezuka settled back against the sofa that was no doubt supposed to make them feel comfortable (intimate) during the interview. Atobe, still glued to his hip, sat beside him, one arm draped possessively around Tezuka’s shoulders.

The interviewer gave her cameraman impatient looks while he fiddled with the angle of his camera on the tripod until he finally gave her a thumb’s-up sign, and she turned her attention back to them.

“I understand congratulations are in order,” she began with a smile.

“Thank you,” Tezuka said politely and disinterestedly.

“Thank you,” Atobe beamed and promptly released Tezuka to lunge over and show her his wedding ring.

Tezuka blinked in stupefied horror as Atobe and the interviewer spent the next five minutes cooing over his ring, which was apparently “absolutely stunning” because “of course, it had to match my radiance, after all.”

Tezuka snorted at the last, and Atobe’s eyes flicked knowingly in Tezuka’s direction as he leaned back and slung his left arm around Tezuka again, his fingers this time ending up just at the base of Tezuka’s neck where he could toy with the short hairs there.

“I see you have a ring, too,” the interviewer tried addressing Tezuka again.

“I do,” Tezuka agreed, but made no further overtures.

“You two make an unlikely couple,” she said, looking more determined than ever at Tezuka’s recalcitrance.

“Do we?” Atobe looked surprised.

“I think we’re a very practical couple,” Tezuka agreed.

“We have so much in common,” Atobe said.

“Both training together and playing the pro circuit?” the interviewer prodded.

“Well, that certainly helps,” Atobe agreed. “Neither of us minds endless tennis-talk.”

“We travel at the same times to the same places for our careers, anyway,” Tezuka conceded. “That means we don’t need to make the same sacrifices that many other players’ spouses have to.”

“But I was thinking more of the everything else we have in common,” Atobe elaborated.

“Such as?”

“Well, we have similar taste in literature and music. A shared interest in travel, learning foreign languages…”

Tezuka snorted. “We do _not_ have similar taste in literature,” he interrupted. “I don’t even know why you would say that.”

“We read together all the time!” Atobe insisted.

“Yes, because we’re talking the same courses,” Tezuka agreed. “You read philosophy for _fun_ ; I read it because I concede that it’s important to expose myself to new ideas.”

“Well, why on earth do you think _I_ think it’s fun?” Atobe shot back.

“Yes, but you don’t read _actual_ fun things for fun. And, no, epic poetry does _not_ count.”

“It was the cheesy sci-fi and thriller of its era,” Atobe said primly. “Just because I don’t read detective novels and trashy romances…”

“I _need_ to read trashy romances for research purposes since, as near as I can tell, I’m _living_ in a trashy romance,” Tezuka needled him.

Atobe’s eyes opened wide in feigned offense. “I am not _trashy_. I’ll have you know that the gods themselves wept in loss when I devoted myself solely to you, and you should be showering me with red roses noon and night in gratitude.”

“And it would never even _occur_ to me to shower you with red roses without the trashy romance novels for inspiration.”

“Hmm,” Atobe considered thoughtfully, “then I suppose they can stay.”

The interviewer, wisely, didn’t make so much as a peep throughout this exchange.

“What was the question again?” Atobe asked.

“I think that covers the literature,” she said, looking a little bit stunned. They had always had a tendency to go off on each other in interviews like this, but up until now, they’d always kept the personal details out of it. It was almost a relief to be _open_ like this now.

“Even Tezuka has to concede that I’m right on the music, though. We both like classical,” Atobe said contentedly, gently stroking the back of Tezuka’s neck.

“Sometimes Atobe plays,” Tezuka offered evilly.

Atobe glared at him.

“Piano. For me.” Tezuka fluttered his eyelashes.

“Ooh…” the interviewer said wide-eyed, just to reaffirm that, yes, the press would now be hell-bent on getting Atobe playing on camera from now on, which – for reasons Tezuka could never fathom but found hilarious – would constitute ‘personal interest’ or some other such nonsense.

“Tezuka’s a wonderful waltzer,” Atobe retorted twice as evilly.

Tezuka gaped at him in abject betrayal.

“He sweeps me right off my feet,” Atobe continued to lay it on thick.

“You _dance_?” the interviewer sounded downright orgasmic.

Tezuka fought the urge to bang his head on the coffee table in front of them. This was going to be a _thing_ now, wasn’t it? “Only with Atobe, in the privacy of our own home,” he said curtly.

“Yes, Tezuka, make it a _secret_ ,” Atobe sing-songed the last word. “That’ll stop the press from asking about it.”

“I hate you,” Tezuka grumbled.

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You love me.”

“Fine, yes, I do.”

“Any other embarrassing facts about Tezuka you wanted to know?” Atobe fluttered his eyelashes at the interviewer.

“How did the two of you start dating?”

Tezuka nearly told her, “No opinion,” until he remembered that, in a fit of insanity, he’d actually agreed to a personal interview after their scandalous kiss on-court at the Roland Garros, which – oops – had been his idea in the first place, and now apparently made them ‘gay role models’ for life, or something equally absurd.

“Uh…” Tezuka tried to come up with a genuinely honest answer to that.

“The moment we played our first match together,” Atobe insisted.

Tezuka gave him an incredulous look. “There was a definite gap between the match itself and when we actually started dating.”

“No, Tezuka-love, there’s a gap _in your mind_ about when we officially started dating. But any reasonable, objective observer would agree that that was our first date.”

“It was a tennis match!”

“Mmm, yes,” Atobe purred. “And you gave me your number right after it.”

Tezuka rolled his eyes. “I gave you my number because we needed to discuss the rehab on my shoulder.”

“That’s what you _said_ , but don’t think I didn’t catch those sultry looks you were giving me out of the corners of your eyes.”

“I was _not_!” Tezuka actually blushed. “I was more confused than anything. I was only 14 at the time!”

“Hmm,” Atobe sighed contentedly. “So young and sweet and full of innocence…just ripe for the plucking.”

“Oh god,” Tezuka pushed his glasses up his nose to rub at his eyes, “you do realize you’re saying this all on camera, right?”

“Of course, I do. That’s _why_ I'm saying it so explicitly,” Atobe agreed amiably. “I want the whole world to know how wholly you’re mine and always have been.”

He turned back to the interviewer, who had the slightest crease between her brows. She paused for a moment, and then said, “Just to clarify: You two have been dating your _entire_ pro careers?”

“And for some time before that, too,” Atobe confirmed smugly.

“And you’ve kept in the closet the whole time?” she asked incredulously. “That…must have been incredibly difficult.”

Tezuka and Atobe snorted in perfect unison: “No” and “Not really.”

The interviewer blinked at them in surprise.

“Our friends and coaches always knew, of course,” Atobe clarified.

“But the press was always hunting for some scandal between Atobe and whatever supermodel happened to be in the same frame at one of his family’s parties,” Tezuka said. “So no one even gave a second look to his training partner standing right beside him.”

“99% of the questions directed Tezuka’s way asked about girlfriends. Tezuka’s inborn disdain of _that_ notion cut off most interviews rather abruptly,” Atobe said. “No one ever followed up on why.” He gave Tezuka a curious look.

“I suppose it’s impolite to ask,” Tezuka said. “Or theorize.”

“Besides,” Atobe offered graciously, “our professional careers make for more pertinent interviews anyway. Generally.”

“Generally, yes,” the interviewer conceded. “So, why _did_ you choose to come out so publicly? And so suddenly, too, after such a long time?”

“An excellent question,” Atobe turned to Tezuka with raised eyebrows. “Since I certainly didn’t get any forewarning. Do tell, Tezuka.”

Tezuka gave him a level look. “You already know perfectly well why,” he accused.

A wicked smile curved Atobe’s lips, the very sort that Tezuka had a difficult time refraining from kissing off. “Yes,” Atobe conceded, “but I’m going to make you admit to it on camera.”

Tezuka forced himself to look at the interviewer and not Atobe’s smug (kissable) mouth. “We were married about six months ago,” he said by way of explanation. “And we’d resolved to let it come out naturally, rather than holding a press conference.”

“You mean, you made me keep my mouth shut, so you could fleece me out of €20 for every tournament that passed without it going public,” Atobe corrected.

“Yes, dear,” Tezuka said dryly, “I did it all for a few hundred euros.”

Atobe snickered into Tezuka’s shoulder, and Tezuka fought back his own laughter because, dammit, some laws were inviolable and he did _not_ smile on camera.

“So, you decided to finally hold your press conference on the court of the French Open?” the interviewer prodded.

Tezuka shrugged. “He was beautiful, and he was my husband, and it was an emotional moment, and I needed to kiss him just then. So I did. As simple as that.” He turned back to Atobe, who was looking at him very softly with dark, dilated eyes. If Atobe kept looking at him like that, Tezuka was going to need to kiss him again very soon. Hopefully, this time they’d make it away from the prying eye of the camera first.

The interviewer, who – despite Tezuka’s general dislike for the breed as a whole – was actually a rather decent human being, seemed to sense that Tezuka had reached his limit, and turned the conversation instead to Tezuka’s disappointing defeat in the finals.

They did a little of a usual song-and-dance around which of them would go further at Wimbledon this season, with both of them insisting they’d defeat each other in the finals (but probably not kiss on the courts this time, because they _were_ professionals, after all).

“Thank you for your time and cooperation,” the interviewer said astutely in Tezuka’s direction when it was finally over and her cameraman was packing up his equipment. “I know how busy both your schedules are.”

“I appreciate the consideration,” Tezuka shook her hand politely.

“Any time,” Atobe purred flirtatiously and gave her an affectionate peck on the cheek. “You know I’m always available for interviews.”

Tezuka just rolled his eyes and waited for Atobe to pull away and return to Tezuka’s gravitational orbit, where Atobe clearly belonged because his press-whore smile was immediately gone and that secretive little smile he reserved solely for Tezuka was back.

“Shall we, husband?” Atobe asked lightly.

“Let’s,” Tezuka agreed, slipping his arm casually through Atobe’s, and headed home to await the incoming storm of press cameras, grueling training, snide smack-talk from their regular opponents, and the invading hordes of Atobe’s father's lawyers. In short, their _life_ together.


End file.
